


Choices

by wondering_why_i



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 01:03:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5723698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wondering_why_i/pseuds/wondering_why_i
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas and Dean both have tough and important choices to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LiveJournal's spn_reversebang. Based on art by kuwlshadow (LJ: http://kuwlshadow.livejournal.com/15882.html or tumblr: http://kuwlshadow.tumblr.com/post/137232432148/i-participated-in-the-spnreversebang-on).
> 
> I haven’t written fic in 4 years. Please be gentle? lol Thanks to artist kuwlshadow for the extra piece of art!! Especially given the fact that up until the morning of our posting day she didn’t know what the title was.

Cas spots two of his brothers walking down the cemetery walkway towards him and smiles warmly.

“Dabriel, Emmanuel.”

“Castiel,” Emmanuel greets coolly. 

Cas realizes forgiveness is nowhere near being given and starts to ask if they can all try to put the past behind them and move on, but he’s interrupted.

“You’re lucky heaven isn't actively searching for you,” Dabriel tells him. “Our orders are to capture you if we come across you. There's a prison cell with your name on it, and it looks like we can finally fill it.”

“If you weren’t searching for me, what brings you to earth?” Castiel asks.

“We’ve heard whispers, rumors.” 

“About me?”

“Unrelated and, as we've concluded, unfounded. Thanks to your presence though, it appears that our trip wasn’t a waste of time.”

Cas hears wings behind him, sign of a third angel arriving. “Are you really going to make me fight you? Hasn’t there been enough fighting between angels in the last decade?”

“Do you still feel that we're your family, Castiel?”

“Of course I do! You are all still my brothers and sisters. I assure you I am still your brother.”

“Then come with us, Castiel. Come home, take your punishment and show us, your brothers and sisters, your _family_ , that you’ll do what’s needed to receive our forgiveness and earn our trust once again.”

 _Highway to Hell_ sounds from Cas’ pocket, a ringtone Dean chose because he thought it was both funny and fitting. Castiel smiles reflexively at the thought of Dean, and his shoulders slump slightly in sadness, knowing he was never going to surrender to the angels and that fighting them is the only way he’ll remain free.

He wants heaven’s forgiveness, to eventually move past all that has happened, all that has been done, be it by himself or his family, but being on earth with Dean is what his heart wants more. One day, after Dean is gone, Castiel will gladly surrender to heaven and do what is needed to eventually mend the broken relationship he has with his angelic family. Today, Cas chooses to fight to stay with the family he’s made on earth.

*

Cas feels Dean’s presence before he hears his boots crunching in icy snow left over from a recent snow fall. Pie. He was supposed to be buying Dean pie. His knuckles are bloody, and he has a bruise forming on his jaw. He could heal himself, clear away all traces of blood and pretend nothing happened, but Cas doesn’t have it in him to bother.

“A guy who’s lived the life I’ve lived tends to worry a little when someone goes out for a quick trip to the store and then fails to answer three phone calls,” Dean states, coming to a stop behind the stone bench Cas is sitting on. “The worry grows when his brother tells him telephone GPS places him in a cemetery and that he’s been there for a while.”

“The angels haven’t forgiven me for not returning to heaven.”

“They’re the ones who won’t let you back into heaven. Where the hell else do the winged douche bags expect you to go?”

“I think it’s because I chose humanity, chose you and Sam. With the amount of times I’ve betrayed them, I guess I can’t blame them.”

“What’s brought this on, Cas?” Dean comes around to stand in front of him, and Cas finally looks up, allowing Dean to see his bruised face and showing him bloody knuckles.

“I ran into Emmanuel and Dabriel. And then Mendrion showed up. They didn’t give me a choice, Dean.”

Dean drops a hand onto Cas’ shoulder and pulls until Cas stands and looks him in the eye.

“If they can’t find it in themselves to accept that you’re happy on earth then that’s on them,” Dean tells him. “I get that their attitude hurts, Cas, I do, but you can’t change that. Thinking about it will only hurt you more, so I say forget them. Sam’s locked himself away with a book. I say we go get my pie and then head back to the bunker to change all the settings on his laptop. It’ll be hilarious and just what you need to right now.” 

“Sam will be mad,” Cas points out. Dean waves off the statement, unconcerned, and starts walking back to where Cas assumes he’s parked the Impala. “Is Sam’s anger part of the fun?” Cas asks, following Dean. 

“Absolutely,” Dean tells him, opening the driver side car door. “Plus it’s my birthright as big brother to annoy the crap out of him.” 

Dean’s phone rings as he and Cas get in the car. Cas listens to Dean’s half of the conversation, understanding that a potential case has surfaced not too far away. When the call ends, Dean leaves the car to get his suit out of the trunk before changing in the back seat. When he’s finished and back in the driver’s seat, he finally shares the details.

“A man was murdered in his home. Doors and windows locked, alarm system. Cases like that usually mean a spirit. Sam’s checking out the property’s history while you and I hit the crime scene.”

They drive in silence until they pull up to their destination. At the door, Dean pulls out his badge, and Cas follows suit, holding it up when Dean introduces him to the deputy as Agent Eddie Moscone.

“Like in Midnight Run! Good movie. I’m Deputy Neal,” the deputy introduces himself, holding out his hand to Cas. 

Cas briefly shakes the hand presented to him. “I’m going to take a look around,” he tells Dean, walking towards the body.

“Don’t take it personally,” Cas hears Dean tells the deputy. “He’s just going through some family drama right now. You’re right about the movie.”

Dean’s apparent lack of regard for his feelings angers Cas, especially given Dean’s own views and feelings on the importance of family.

Almost twenty minutes pass before Dean ends his conversation with Deputy Neal and finally joins Cas by the body.

“Those are some ugly pyjamas,” Dean comments. Cas ignores the remark and relays what he’s learned while Dean was talking with the deputy. 

“Marcus Grant was strangled but the coroner doesn’t know with what, just that it wasn’t hands or any kind of rope or cord. She put his time of death between ten and midnight, but the victim’s girlfriend said they spoke on the phone from ten thirty to eleven. She and her son found Marcus when they returned home from visiting her parents. She confirms that the alarm was on when they walked in, and the alarm company confirms that the alarm was set at 11:07 last night and stayed on until the girlfriend turned it off. There’s EMF. It’s not coming from the power lines. In the five weeks they’ve lived in the house, there have been the occasional flickering lights and cold spots but nothing odd for a house this age.”

“Now I feel useless. What am I even doing here?”

“Chatting up a deputy,” Cas snaps before heading out of the house and back to the Impala.

*

When they return to the bunker, Dean goes off to put away the pies he bought on the way back and find out how Sam’s research is going. Cas takes a seat at the warroom table, thinking about his morning.

“Sammy’s in full research mode,” Dean announces a few minutes later, taking a seat across from Cas. “All I understood was that it looks like the house kept being sold every few years so it took a while to find anything useful but that he’s on to something. And then it was like I didn’t exist.”

“Maybe I should go back to heaven,” Cas muses. “Take whatever punishment they see fit and eventually show them that they are still my family.”

“Is going back what you really want?” Dean asks.

“What’s keeping me on earth?”

“Oh I don’t know, Cas...maybe me and Sam? Remember us?”

“Sam won’t care if I go back to heaven.”

“Oh well if Sam doesn’t care then by all means go back. Clearly you don’t have anyone down here who gives a crap about you. Damn it, Cas, you _know_ I give a crap so why do you have to make me say it?”

“Because the longer I'm on earth the more human I become. I'm finding that occasionally hearing you say you care is nice, Dean.”

Before Dean can reply, Sam hurries into the library, laptop in hand, unaware of the discussion going on. “Working through past owners wasn’t getting me anywhere so I went back to when the house was first built. Back when the house was first built, the owner also had a small cabin built in the wooded area of the land. Pieces of land on both sides of the property have been sold over the years, but the land the cabin was built on is still part of the current owner’s property. Guess who recently applied for a permit to knock down the cabin, and guess when the demolition occurred.”

“Right before the murder,” Dean states. “So are we dealing with the original owner who’s pissed that his little cabin has been torn down?”

“I don’t think it’s about the cabin being gone, I think it’s about what could have been uncovered by or disturbed during the demolition. The house and cabin were built about seventy years ago. I called a local historian to ask if anything had gone on back then, and sixty years ago, a teenage boy went missing one night on his way home from a friend’s house. The town formed a search party, but he was never found and eventually presumed dead. According to the historian, the man who owned the house was a suspect in the disappearance, but without a body, there was no proof.”

“What made the man a suspect?” Cas asks.

“Apparently he was ‘a real shady character’, and the kid would have had to bike past by his property to get home.”

“You think we’re dealing with the kid’s spirit?” Dean asks. “Makes sense if he was buried near the cabin.”

“Hospital records say the original owner died in hospital from a stroke a few years after the disappearance. The method of last night’s murder doesn’t match up with death by stroke.”

Dean claps his hands together. “Alright then. The missing kid it is.”

“I’ll go locate and burn the remains,” Cas tells them. “It’ll be faster,” he adds, walking out of the library before either Winchester can argue. Dean shouts after to him to call if he needs help, and Cas is a little disappointed that he doesn’t offer to come along.

*

Cas stands where the old decrepit cabin stood up until two days ago and quickly locates remains buried by a tree a few feet away. He identifies them as those of the teenage boy who went missing all those years ago and holds a hand over them. The boy’s spirit isn’t attached to them, but Cas senses another spirit is present. A glimmer catches his eye, and Castiel pulls a crucifix pendant out of the boy’s jaw. Looking up from the bones, Cas see’s the spirit of the house’s original owner, the boy’s murderer. 

“When will humans stop murdering in the name of God?” he asks the spirit. “You murder in his name yet none of you truly know what he does and doesn’t condone. What could this boy have been guilty of for you to think he deserved death? What did Marcus Grant do?”

The spirit is silent, and Cas drops the pendant onto the remains before passing a hand over them, burning the bones and piece of jewelry in mere moments, watching the murderer’s spirit disappear.

Returning to the bunker just yet isn’t an appealing thought, and Cas walks aimlessly through the town, watching the citizens out and about on their Saturday night activities.

Someone places a hand on his shoulder, and Cas turns around to find Deputy Neal smiling at him. “Agent Moscone!”

“Deputy,” Cas greets.

“Please, call me Jack. Would you like to join me for a drink?” he asks, nodding towards the bar at the end of the street. Cas nods and follows him. “I should apologise for my behavior earlier today. It was very unprofessional of me,” Jack admits.

“I don’t think you were being unprofessional. I was cold towards you. You were being nice, and I wasn’t,” he tells the deputy. “I should be the one to apologise. Family drama,” he explains, repeating Dean’s words.

“You can tell me to mind my own business, but I get the feeling from your tone that family drama isn’t actually the issue you’re having.”

Cas wants to argue but he can’t. His broken relationship with his family hurts, but Dean’s earlier lack of regard for his feelings hurts more. He finds himself missing the days when he was free of human emotions.

“My partner, the one from earlier, he...we...I believe the phrase people use is ‘it’s complicated’. I feel maybe I was wrong about us, about what I mean to him. It’s all very confusing. Things used to be so simple before Dean. I wouldn’t even know where to begin explaining our relationship.” Cas tells Jack about Dean and voices feelings and thoughts he spends most of his time trying not to think about. Jack listens intently.

“Sounds like he’s still in the closet,” Jack tells him when Cas finishes speaking. 

“Dean isn’t in a closet...” 

Jack chuckles. “It’s a metaphorical closet. Have you told him how you feel?”

“Men don’t talk about their feelings.” Cas can just imagine how much Dean would mock him if he heard even a fraction of what Cas told Jack.

“He tell you that?” Cas nods, and Deputy Neal shakes his head. “You are going to have to dig deep into that closet.” Cas frowns a little again, still unsure about what closets have to do with the situation. “My advice is just be honest with him. Lay it all out on the table and then let him decide if he wants to stay in that closet or work on coming out. But if he chooses the former, you owe it to yourself to move on.”

When he leaves the bar, Cas slowly heads back to the bunker, thinking about the deputy’s advice. He can say nothing and leave things as they are or he can tell Dean how he feels and see what happens. 

Life hunting with the Winchesters, as Dean’s close friend, is good.

Life hunting with the Winchesters, as Dean’s partner, would be nicer.

If Dean chooses to ‘stay in the closet’, though, Cas doesn’t know if he has it in him to move on from Dean of his own free will, even if moving on would mean going back home, to heaven, and beginning the long process of mending his relationship with his family. Heaven will still be there when he eventually loses Dean. When he loses Dean, Dean will be in heaven.

*

Cas walks into the bunker, and stops to take off his coat and tie as well as undo a button or two of his shirt. He walks into Dean's room and stops to kick off his shoes while Dean questions his presence. Determined to take Jack’s advice and let Dean know exactly how he feels, Cas ignores Dean’s question and walks over to the bed before getting on it and lying down in the space next to Dean. Dean questions him again, and Cas tells him they're either going to talk about their feelings of go to sleep. Dean points out that Cas doesn't sleep.

“Dean, shut up.” He kisses Dean, and when no punches are thrown, Cas deems it a good sign and takes advantage of Dean’s surprised silence to speak his mind. “I know you love me, Dean. I don't expect you to do things like hold my hand on the street nor do I expect you to stop having sex with women.” Dean tries to interrupt, but Cas keeps talking. “We were never going to have a conventional relationship.” Dean tries to speak again but Cas keeps going. “I don't need sex, if that’s one of your concerns.”

“You said sex was good,” Dean states, finally getting a word in.

“It was, but I don't need it, so it’s alright if it’s not something you want to give me. I’m not asking for that.”

“What are you asking for, Cas?”

“For you to stop acting like what’s between us is a lot less than what it is, and for you to stop thinking so damn much. You once told me that you’re well fed, that when you want something, you go and get it. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’d have told me long ago, in your own Dean Winchester way, how you feel, but you haven’t. Something in that hard head of yours is stopping you.”

“I...I don’t know what’s in my hard head, Cas. We all know I was never the poster child for well adjusted. I never will be. The one thing I do know though is I always mess everything up.”

“And yet I’m still here, Dean. Doesn’t that tell you anything? Don’t you think I’d have gone back to Heaven by now if I didn’t think you were worth sticking around for? Surely you don’t think I stuck around for some other reason. And despite the fact that you ‘mess everything up’ you’ve still made me a part of your life, Dean. You’ve made me a part of it instead of just being in it.” 

“Deputy Neal is going to be disappointed,” Dean jokes nervously. Cas takes joking as a good sign. “I don’t know about holding your hand on the street, and I’m really not sure about sex, but I think this right now is good.”

“Should I put you to sleep right now so you can’t lay there and start over thinking everything that’s just been said or get up and drink until you can’t remember anything that was said?”

Dean agrees, a barely audible “probably” falling from his lips as he closes his eyes, and Cas puts him to sleep, wondering what will happen come morning when Dean wakes up and remembers everything that was just said.

*

Cas wakes up, snuggly wrapped in a blanket that smells like Dean, and looks around, taking a moment to recall where he is and how he came to be there, smiling when he does. The bedside clock tells him it’s just past 8:00 in the morning. Cas remembers joining Dean in bed shortly before 11:00 the night before and is surprised he fell asleep, let alone for so long. The last time he slept, he had been considerably weakened by his borrowed Grace fading. 

Despite being extremely comfortable snuggled up in bed, Cas decides to go find Dean and tosses aside the blanket. He finds Dean in the kitchen with Sam.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Dean greets, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate of pie in the other. Cas walks over to him, and Dean hesitates before going in for a quick kiss. Sam slightly chokes on his sip of coffee. Dean’s body tenses up momentarily but he ignores his brother. Cas feels a happy flutter in his stomach and looks away to hide a bashful smile. “Do you want some pie?” Dean asks.

“For breakfast?”

“Damn right for breakfast.”

“I don't eat,” Cas reminds him.

“Which is the only reason I asked.”

They sit down at the table with Sam who starts to tell them about a case in Salem that sounds witchy, and Cas smiles. He’s glad Dean has decided to come out of his metaphorical closet.


End file.
